USA Today Shows How Not to Report on Egypt Protests

The forces attacking the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tahrir Square were not “rival protesters”; they were government agents, complete in many cases with police ID cards that were confiscated when violent provocateurs were apprehended by activists (Al Jazeera English, 2/2/11). As New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof (2/3/11) put it in his firsthand report from the square:

The events were sometimes presented by the news media as “clashes” between rival factions, but that’s a bit misleading. This was an organized government crackdown, but it relied on armed hoodlums, not on police or army troops.

The USA Today piece, by Jim Michaels and Theodore May, was a prime example of the kind of deceptive coverage Kristof was talking about. In USA Today‘s version, the thugs bringing violence to heretofore peaceful demonstrations were civic-minded individuals “worried that groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood would take over if free elections are held” and “saving Egypt from the Islamic extremism that has infected the Middle East.” The piece even quoted Egyptian state TV as explaining that the camel-riding goons running down protesters were actually “pyramid workers who were protesting the negative economic impact of the crisis.”

Contrary to other eyewitness accounts, in USA Today‘s world both sides are equally responsible for violence, as “protesters took chunks of concrete from the street to use as ammunition and occasionally tossed Molotov cocktails at each other.”

Michaels has a history of deceptive, credulous reporting from the Middle East and Afghanistan (FAIR Blog, 7/1/10, 8/6/10, 8/27/10; Extra!, 9-10/08). But this report is a poor effort even for him.

Extra! Magazine Editor Since 1990, Jim Naureckas has been the editor of Extra!, FAIR's monthly journal of media criticism. He is the co-author of The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the '90s. He is also the co-manager of FAIR's website. He has worked as an investigative reporter for the newspaper In These Times, where he covered the Iran-Contra scandal, and was managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere, a newsletter on Latin America. Jim was born in Libertyville, Illinois, in 1964, and graduated from Stanford University in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in political science. Since 1997 he has been married to Janine Jackson, FAIR's program director. You can follow Jim on Twitter at @JNaureckas.

This kind of propaganda is coming out of all orifices of the corp press. They seriously expect us to believe that millions of pro-democracy protesters, from all sectors of Egyptian society, are somehow secretly extremists-in-waiting. This line of “thinking” is simply an apology for the US, and its military-industrial complex, refusing to support people’s efforts at controlling their own lives, which is the very definition of democracy.

If you want to hear what the protesters themselves have been saying — the only voices that should be relevant in deciding Egypt’s future — you’ll have to turn to Democracy Now or Al Jazeera.

Where oh where are the true investigative journalists of the past; those they helped bring Vietnam and Watergate to light. Most investigative journalists appear tainted slightly “yellow” on this true revolution on the street. Little difference between stories in Enquirer and national news magazines.

The clock work precision with which counter protests ready for violent confrontations, started and instantly disappeared on cue after being denounced world over, itself proves that the protest were less spontaneous and more organized. Even the new Egyptian Prime Minister’s pledge that it will not be repeated again, proves the real source of counter demonstration.

A few nights ago The Daily Show ridiculed the notion that the pro-Mubarak thugs were independent, noting that they arrived in buses simultaneously, were well armed, etc.

But Thursday night when he interviewed the Pentagon’s Joint Chief of Staffs you’d think they were lovers. Admiral Mullin clearly knew the score about Egypt. Stewart says ‘No one knows who the pro-Mubarak demonstrators were,’ throws up his hands and moves on to the next question. But the man he was talking to undoubtedly KNEW who they were — but Stewart wouldn’t ask him.

Mullin is a great ‘friend of the show,’ as Colbert would put it — but why? Stewart and Colbert are, too much like the rest of mainstream media, in bed with the government on foreign and military policy.

US TODAY’s report about protesters using stones to attack back on the new intruders is of a later stage when the confrontations between the two sides became violent. It is not covered by others, as if legitimizing the counter measures adopted by protesters as self-defense measures and not worth projecting; even though live coverage clearly covered both sides’ use of stones and Molotov cocktails.

That tit for tat violent confrontation does not obliterate the fact to as who started the violence, and further, if the ‘peaceful’ modus operandi of the protesters was merely tactical and not ideological.

this may have worked on 9/11 already where we all became eye witness in a coloured magician show. Playing illusions or playing silence, there is no difference but US Today maybe didnt know that White House changed attitude against Mubarack like they did with Saddam, Bin Laden and everybody becoming uncomftably useless. “Journalists without frontier” in the middle of the event in Cairo got a lot to tell you guys or hang them all together with Wikileaks. The US-RAEL interest haven in the heart of arabian countries is at game and were going to listen to many crap from now on. Eating nuts shall be good nutritions to brain cells. So nut up everybody

As soon as this article said “PRO Democracy demonstrators” I stopped reading.How do we know they are pro democracy?Some may be.Some are absolutely not.A union of convenience,nothing more.It has been reported that less than 1% of the Egyptian population is out there protesting.Most of the demonstrations are a couple hundred thousand people.Now lets see….if we can rally that many against Obama could we chuck him out on his skinny ass?No of course not.There is this weird dynamic where anytime a pro American government(to a degree)is being overthrown it is looked at as a quest for freedom from an oppressor by the left.Usually you don’t understand at all that “incoming”may be far worse.Maybe if Egypt falls to the Muslim brotherhood and gas shoots through the stratosphere, that dumb bitch(your words)who says drill baby drill will make more sense to you.Though i doubt it.You ARE after all liberals

Yes indeed. Michael e, dictators are the very best friend a democracy could have in this world! They are pro American only as long we continue to fund their repressive machinery however. We do indeed have tons of dictators as friends, we even school their strong men at the School of the Americas in Georgia. Gives our Democracy a whole new meaning!

Carol no idea what your talking about(Georgia).Rob and Emma…….as our president has backed away from jumping into the frying pan on this issue ,I find it interesting that you both are ready ,willing ,and able to accept whatever comes down the pike in an overthrow of the current Egyptian gov.I am not vouching for The current leader.Im just saying we better take this slow.
Want to do an interesting test.Take a top Egyptian , University and look up pics of its graduating class.Toggle back and forth between the sixties and now.Notice anything?In the past Egyptian woman looked very much like western woman.Now they are almost all covered in veils.
I got to speak to a certain notorious Imam today who is making a lot of waves in England for his open pronouncements that he wants a sheria world,run by sheria law.He unlike you( who often sound very much like him in your anti US pronouncements )makes no bones about wanting an overthrow of Egypt by the muslim brotherhood.Mubarac may be a dictator.But there are dictators and there are dictators.What is coming down the pike in the guise of freedom is an abomination, and truly a horror.So careful what you wish for.